This is more proof that our government is completely out
of
control. Those who want to redistribute wealth (the
liberals) have
taken over and there is no more sense of fairness.
The bums should
be tossed out of Washington and we should start
over. I hope it
doesn't take a revolution to do it.

I worked for the IRS and survived. I learned about
taxpayers,
but the really interesting part of it was learning about
tax-takers.

We all have this vague notion of people who don't pay taxes
but receive
money from Uncle Sam in what euphemistically is called a tax
refund. That's what I had, a vague notion, until I was
forced to
close my business in 2010. I took a seasonal job with
the Internal
Revenue Service to get some household cash flow going.
We
"Timmy Geithner warriors" were appalled by what we
learned.

We generally knew that 47 percent of our population pays no
income taxes
whatsoever. However, we didn't know, and I suspect that
very few of
you know, how much of your tax money is actually given to
non-taxpayers
-- in a lump sum, to do with as they please. Over lunch
we joked
that half the tattoo parlors in America would go under without
Uncle
Sam's largesse. Only later I learned that was closer to
the truth
than a joke.

Like most anti-poverty programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit
when
enacted in 1975 was supposed to be temporary. It was
visualized as
a tool to lift the working poor out of poverty. It was
quickly made
permanent and has been modified numerous times over the
ensuing 36
years. In 2004, 20 million families received $36
billion. The
flower children assume that was $36 billion spent on food,
shelter, and
health care. We who live in the real world know it was
spent on
big-screen television sets, 22-inch chrome wheels, and
colorful
tattoos.

It was widely
noted last week that those living below the poverty
level in the U.S.
tend to own cars, TVs, computers, cells phones, enjoy
air-conditioning,
and own video game consoles. The free money these folks
receive
from you and me is not counted for poverty level calculations.

In addition, the feds estimate that between 22 and 30 percent
of
taxpayers claiming EITC do not actually qualify so we spend an
additional
$8 billion to $10 billion trying to straighten that out.

I can't talk specifics about my time at the IRS, but here are
some
generalities. Those claiming EITC also qualify for other
so-called
refundable credits (how can something be refundable when
nothing is paid
in the first place?). The typical 1040 would show an
income of
between $12,000 to $18,000 for the year. It was usually
accompanied
by one W-2 with the income earned almost always by a
female. With
other refundable credits listed, a "refund" would be claimed
of
between $6,000 and $9,000.

And these people believe that is their money; they have a
right to
it. I fielded a telephone query from a woman who didn't
even say
hello, but blurted, "I haven't got my taxes." For an
instant I thought she meant that she didn't have enough money
to pay her
taxes, but I quickly realized she was talking about her
"refund." We newbies learned that those who pay taxes
have a general fear of calling the IRS and tend to be nice on
the
telephone, while those who don't pay any taxes believe they
are entitled
and are not always pleasant to deal with. We also
learned these
aren't the brightest people on the planet with many signing
their refund
over to a tax-preparer and then claiming they didn't know they
had done
that. (The "instant refund" scam perpetrated by many
storefront tax-preparers is a whole other story.)

I mentioned the tattoo joke above. It turned out to be
the truth in
the only anecdotal story I heard during my stint at the
IRS. A
golfing buddy said his girlfriend's daughter claims EITC among
other
things and received a U.S. government check for $6,000.
She used
the money to take her toddler daughter and the child's
ne'er-do-well
father to the Monterey Bay Aquarium -- a couple hundred bucks
-- and
spent the remainder for a giant tattoo on her back. I'm
so glad I
could help.

President Obama has asked us to embrace "shared sacrifice" to
help break the stalemate over the debt impasse while
lecturing, "We
might as well do it now -- pull off the Band-Aid, eat our
peas." Well Mr. President, are you including the
above-mentioned 47 percent in your shared sacrifice
scenario?
Should they pull off the Band-Aid while drinking their $5
energy drink in
front of their 60-inch flat-screen TV? I know I would
feel much
more like brothers fighting the good fight if their hands
weren't in my
pockets.

Earl Wright was employed as a customer service
representative in the
Accounts Management branch of the Internal Revenue Service's
Fresno, CA
Service Center from Jan. 24, 2011 until he was furloughed
June 3,
2011. He says it was like returning to the 7th grade.